Anyone had any problems with writable Maxell DVD-R lately?

[mendel_leisk]

First off, I know next to nothing about burning and various disk

brands. I have a Plextor PX-712A burner, which I have used without

problem with Taiyo Yuden dvd-r in past.

 

I recently purchased some Maxell dvd-r. They were intended

for "working copy" use. Tried a burn of the same tiff files that I

previously did with Taiyo Yeuden. The resultant disk causes ADCSee to

lock.

 

CD-Check reports errors in about 30% of the files, and identifies the

disks as Ritek. Plextor Plextools and Nero CD-DVD Speed identify the

disks as Ritek, as well, and numerous damaged and a few bad sectors

in a read of the disk, before it seemed to lock, at around 19%

completion.

 

Phoned Maxell support, they are willing to replace the disks, but

caution the replacements would likely be the same manufacturer.

[emre]

Use a lower burning speed...say 4x. Certainly not higher than 8x.

[mendel_leisk]

My first burn was with Plextor's "PowerRec" setting for speed, it looked to default to 8x for this Maxell media. Following Emre's advice, I did a second burn at forced 4x, and it came out fine.

 

Les, I did not verify the writes with Plextor, but I did with CD Check, which found no errors in any of the files, on the second burn at 4x, compared to multipe file errors with the first, which was at the PowerRec setting, which turned out to be 8x.

 

Nero CD-DVD Speed scandisc function did a complete sector-by-sector check and all are "green", meaning good. However, doing a similar scandisc on my previous recorded Taiyo Yuden, it ran thru the test a fair bit faster.

 

So, several issues:

 

1. Maxell seems to be sub-contracting, and their sources may vary. Just my impression from reading on the net.

 

2. The advertised 8x speed is not practical, atleast not with my Plextor.

 

3. Even with succesful, slower speed burn, it seems relatively slow to run through Nero CD-DVD Speed scandisc, compared to my Taiyo Yudens. Meaning something? Also, the TY were burned with my Plextor's "PowerRec" setting, which settled down around 8x as I recall, with no problems.

 

Well, the unopened cakes are headed back to the store, and I'm going to look for some more Taiyo Yuden's.

 

Thanks, all!

[mendel_leisk]

BTW, these Maxell's were advertised as 8x.

[marcos_rodriguez]

Hi Mendel,

 

If you are using DVDs for data and not movies, I'd recommend "DVD+" instead of "DVD-". I recently purchased a DVD burner, and did some research on the different formats. "DVD-" is recommended as the best choice for DVD movies, as it will be compatible with most home DVD players. But for data backup, "DVD+" is definitely the way to go, given its superior error correction and recovery capabilities.

 

As for brands, I remember not reading very good things about Maxell. I've been using Verbatim brand (burning at 8x) with no apparent problem.

 

Hope all is good with you, how's that Canon 20D going? I got my 350D a couple of weeks ago and am absolutely delighted; the nightmarish days of scanning film are finally over --well, mostly, as I still have the old archive to take care of.

 

Best,

 

Marcos

[mendel_leisk]

Hi Marcos. Well, a little late to switch: I have 400 Taiyo Yeuden DVD-R's on hand. No problems to date. I've read up a bit more on the -R vs +R, and did not find anything really definitive. The main thing I read was drive compatibility issues. Verbatim was also recommended. I think the issue with the Maxell's was that they are relabelled Ritek.

 

Good to hear you got a dslr. Quite a switch, eh! I plug away with my 20D, when I get the chance. The majority of my pics are: "on the way to work", "out the window at work", "on the way home from work". Something wrong here ;o Actually, we got out on the weekend with the camera, make an effort to take some shots, especially when travelling. I settled on Adobe camera raw for processing, for now, and am liking the results.

 

Like you, still have that massive backlog of film to get digitized, tho. Am finally making headway with my 25 years worth of slides, having ironed out some issues, focus, slide mount cropping, etc.